Living the Radiant Life: A Personal NarrativeJames, George Wharton
Religion
Living the Radiant Life: A Personal Narrative
James, George Wharton
Conduct of life
If, for the public good, I should ever be called upon to pass judgment
upon any of the actions that are the result of the beliefs of my
neighbors and friends, and I, with my fellow jurors, deemed these
actions subversive of the public good, I could unite with my fellows in
suppressing these actions. But this would be done with a perfectly open
heart, without malice, without censure even, without any presumption,
without any interference with the _principle_ I have sought clearly to
state and exemplify. It would be done as the result of our united
judgment upon a matter of public policy--not a fixed, established
assurance of right or wrong, but as a matter wherein, for the benefit of
others, we regarded the restriction of an inherent and God-given freedom
a justifiable act.
Herein, to my mind, lies the power of the argument of the political
prohibitionists. They seek to prohibit men from the exercise of their
undoubted right to manufacture and sell alcoholic stimulants--their
undoubted right provided it could be done without injury to the bodies
and souls of their fellow-beings. No one can claim an inherent right to
injure his neighbor willfully and deliberately. No one can claim a
God-given right to transgress God's own laws. Those who believe in God
believe He has ordained laws for the government of all that He has
created. The interpretation of the "moral law" as handed down to us in
the Scriptures is, in the main, similar in all creeds in Christendom,
and practically the same among all who, without so-called creeds,
believe in the brotherhood of man.
Upon those points wherein men have conscientiously differed there have
been instances where the ruling majority has restricted or taken away
the rights of the minority to put their beliefs into practice, because
the consensus of opinion has decided such acts to be contrary to public
policy or public good, but it does not necessarily follow that the
interference was based upon incontrovertible ideas of right or wrong.
My contention is that no man or body of men has the inherent right to
interfere with the beliefs and acts of their fellow-beings who are
sincerely and conscientiously seeking to love God with all the heart and
their neighbors as themselves, but in all countries where the majority
is supposed to rule it is expedient to submit to prevailing customs and
laws unless conscience imperatively demands otherwise. In any case,
however, it does not necessarily follow that the majority is always in
the right and the minority in the wrong, especially in religious
matters.
CHAPTER XI
OUT OF DOOR RADIANCIES
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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